


Warlord of the Red Wastes

by Todeswind



Series: Warlord of the Red Wastes [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Warcraft - All Media Types, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, World of Warcraft
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 07:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17524238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todeswind/pseuds/Todeswind
Summary: A Lieutenant General of the Horde is forced to divert his airship from the front lines to fulfill a dark pact enacted on the Legion World of Argus. Bound by dark magic he is forced to a world that doesn't want him there to achieve the goals of an enemy he knows is seeking the demise of the nation he serves to defeat an even greater evil festering at the fringes of a world soaked in blood and hatred.





	1. Chapter 1

Abraxian Skycaller sat upon the sturdy chair, allowing his tail to slip through the hole in the back as he sighed in relief. He’d spent the past three months on the front-lines, battling Alliance Warriors and Troll blood mages. Furniture, especially furniture sized properly for a Tauren, had been a virtual impossibility in the dense tropical marshlands and overgrown jungles north of the Troll Kingdom of Zul’dazar. He closed his eyes and relaxed, trying to ignore the disconcerting sounds of the Goblin sitting at the foot of his chair. The wispy green man hacked at the bottoms of his hooves, cleaning out the debris.

 

It was an unnerving, if invaluable, process that the Horde had imported with them when they’d come to Kalimdor. They’d brought numerous beasts of burden pillaged from the Human farmlands, including a great many equines and bovines. The practice of cleaning and protecting hooves had appealed greatly to his people, but had proven difficult to implement without outside assistance. The fingers of the Tauren were not well suited for delicate work.

 

He personally found the small fingers and keen eyes of Goblins best suited to the task - though he knew that he paid a steep premium for dealing with the unscrupulous creatures. He flinched as he felt the Goblin’s pick dislodge a sharp rock from his hoof, he curious feeling of something being yanked out was a pleasant one but only once the process was finished.

 

His family would likely have teased him for the indulgence. It would have been a hopelessly cosmopolitan thing to do in Mulgore, even in the metropolis of Thunder Bluff. His people were a lamentably traditional one - change came to them slowly, and only when it was in line with the will of the spirits of the land. It wasn’t that he dismissed the spirits, one could not survive what he had seen without gaining a healthy respect for the will of such forces, but one need not leave themself entirely beholden to the urges of primal beings or the chains of tradition.

 

Let the shamans and druids parlay with with spirits and sprites. His duty was to the will of his Warchief. Though, in truth, his heart was struggling to meet the spirit of his obligation as of late. Perhaps it would have been better to stay with Saurfang and meet a warrior’s end, rather than feel the turmoil he felt in his soul.

 

It had been fourteen long years since he’d left Mulgore - all of them blood soaked. He really had intended to retire after hitting Lieutenant General. He had neither the political connections or thirst for battle required to ascend to the rank of High Warlord, but his probationary attempts to retire had all failed as some new threat arose to draw him back in. It was as though the universe itself could sense him drawing closer to a life of peace and relaxation, inventing some new horror to toss him into chaos for having the temerity to suggest he might depart from the battlefield into obscurity.

 

There was always some new land that the Warchief felt was necessary to invade, and some threat that Abraxian couldn’t, in good faith, allow to keep living. The days when he’d fled angry wolves felt so distant that he could hardly remember them any more - the predatory beasts of Mulgore, dangerous though they were, paled in comparison to the threats he’d faced with blade in hand. He looked at his fingers, idly considering the patchwork of scars along them. The spidering pattern of burns, cuts and abrasions ended at his wrist, but only because the fur of his arms was thick enough to cover the endlessly interlacing wounds.

 

His life was perpetuated at this point by a mix of skill, medicine, magic, literal divine intervention and sheer dumb luck. Even death hadn’t seemed to stick for any length of time. And while the priest who’d raised him from the dead assured him that he was in point of fact, alive, it had struck him as odd for one of the undead to be the final arbiter in such things.

 

“Abraxian,” Spoke the young voice of an Orc, speaking with a heavy dose of Northrender twang to his pronunciation of the Orcish tongue. It still held the vague notes of puberty to it, slight crackings of innocence within the dark grumble of an ostensibly adult orc.

 

Abraxian peeked out of his left eye, his gaze falling upon the green skinned man. It was Gazk, the herald pledged to his service by the Argent Crusade as bondsman while he was still a gruntling. He was well past the required period of mandatory service to Abraxian, but had never pursued his right to leave Abraxian’s side. That was, he supposed, to be expected. Orcs were disinclined to leave the service of their leaders in war, and Abraxian was rarely away from battle.

 

Abraxian flinched reflexively as he watched the goblin shear away old hoof with a file, grinding out old keratin. It didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t resist the thought that it ought to. “Gazk. Well met. To what do I owe your visit.”

 

“New orders.” The man held up a vellum scroll marked with the seal of the Undercity upon it. “Direct from the Warchief.”

 

Abraxian grunted, saying nothing as his blood boiled in his chest. A mix of shame and rage occupied his mind whenever he thought of the Warchief. His oath of loyalty prevented him speaking his true thoughts but he knew that Warchief Sylvanas was acting without reason. The burning of Teldrassil, the use of Blight on alliance soldiers, the destruction of the Undercity, and even the exile of Saurfang - these boded ill of the war to come. Would he be welcome in the halls of Odyn when next he came? Would he want to be?

 

He took the scroll, unrolling it and considering it. He couldn’t help but let the contempt into his voice as he growled, “And now we’re aligning ourselves with the Troll empires that were invading us only years ago.”

 

“Were you not fighting alongside the Alliance on Argus?” Queried his bondsman as the Goblin barber pulled a fist sized - well Goblin fist sized - rock from the hoof and chucked it aside.

 

“I was.” Abraxian replied firmly. “We all were. None of us would be alive without the combined efforts of the Horde’s and the Alliance’s war upon the Legion. A war that the Zandalari were noticeably absent from, I might add. No, the Alliance are capable warriors and - for their faults - honorable.”

 

“Then they will be worthy foes.” Gazk grinned, his tusks upturning eagerly. “I will meet them in battle, as you did on the fields of Alterac, Warsong, and Arathi.”

 

Abraxian stayed his tongue from the treasonous words that were nearly upon his lips. He was a leader in the Horde Armies - defeating the forces who would threaten that Horde, even those who’d been his allies only weeks ago on the Broken Isles, was his duty. But as he looked into the eyes of a boy he’d raised from a tuskless gruntling who was eager to soak himself in the gore of other men too young to realize their mortality, it was not a duty that he looked forward to meeting.

 

He let out a hiss of air from his nostrils that he hoped his subordinate associated with the metal shoes being hammered into place beneath his hooves rather than his disgust at the contents of his missive. “We are to make for Zuldazar and meet the other Champions of Azeroth… though not through the route I would have expected. Apparently our new allies are less politically stable than one might hope.”

 

“Shall I inform the Garrison?” Gazk inquired.

 

“Spirits no - if we’re lucky this war will reach some state of detente before we start pulling troops back from offworld. If things get to that, then it can be the purse strings of the Horde proper who finances that.” Portals between cities and worlds were notoriously expensive magical constructs. He didn’t want to begin to imagine how expensive it would be to move his entire garrison between planets.

 

He flicked several gold coins to the goblin as he examined the ironclad hooves. The Goblin’s work was excellent, if a bit eclectic in his design sensibilities. “Come Gazk. Walk with me.”

 

They left the salon and walked into the sweltering streets of Orgrimmar. The capital city of the Horde was nearly hot enough to prepare food, smouldering sunlight blocked out from view by a seemingly endless canopy of animal hides spread out between the balconies lining the sheer cliff-face of the ravine the Orcs had settled when first they came to Kalimdor. It was a sprawling chaos of the multitudinous races of the Horde and its allies. Strange beasts and animals moved through the streets with no clear indications as to which of them might be the beast and which of them were the master.

 

Though who was he to judge? Abraxian was as odd as any other man or beast that wandered the streets. He reached over, patting the flank of a leathery beast tethered in front of the salon. It grunted briefly in acknowledgement of the Tauren’s touch, turning it’s broad bony crest slightly to eye him with one reptilian pupil. The primordial Direhorn was perhaps not the most impressive creature he’d enlisted the loyalty of, but it was the most impressive he felt was wise to bring within a major population center. It was smaller than a Kodo, easier to navigate - and capable of fighting back against some erstwhile Worg or Wyvren that might feel inclined to make a meal of an unsupervised horse or war strider.

 

There were other mounts in his service, dangerous and devious beings. But only a madman would choose to ride into a city atop a Dragon - even an adolescent one. Gazk hopped atop the beast, sitting on the howda as Abraxian removed the creature’s feed bag and lifted himself to take the Direhorn’s reins. He pulled left, turning the beast to walk through the multitudes. The crowd parted to make room for the three-horned beast of burden, flowing around it like water meeting a river rock.

 

“There are more people on the street than usual today.” Abraxian noted.

 

“Refugees.” Gazk replied.

 

Abraxian winced. He should have realized - where else would the Forsaken go but Orgrimmar? “There is still a housing shortage for the spillover from the Undercity for the Forsaken who aren’t fighters. Silvermoon City has set quotas on how many they’re willing to take and Thunder Bluff isn’t exactly an easy trip.”

 

“Well… the Goblins are offering options…” Gazk spoke the word “option” like a vile swear word.

 

“And the Goblins are doubtlessly charging for the privilege of living in their ‘refugee accommodations’ aren’t they?” Abraxian took Bazk’s short bark of laughter as affirmation enough.

 

“The Highmountian and Nighborne have been willing to take people, but nobody wants to go there. Too many Legion soldiers.” Gazk shrugged. “If they’re rich enough some of them have just moved to Dalaran but … you know… mages and all.”

 

“Ah… of course.” Abraxian groaned in realization. The Kirin Tor had many admirable traits, but they were ultimately a society of Wizards. If one lacked magic one was rarely the interest of a Mage. If one was without magical talent, one had difficulty finding a place in the structure of their society. Especially given how much space was at a premium in the floating city, wealth alone would not gain one residence in Dalaran. Magic was not exactly a common skill set - certainly not in the degree required to gain residence in the city. “So we now have two cities worth of people living where we’d previously only had the one.”

 

“Could be worse.” Gazk interjected. “At least the Forsaken aren’t too bothered about eating.”

 

“They’re perfectly happy to eat. They just prefer that their food was once able to talk back.” Abraxian shook his head. “The rituals of restoration required to keep them vial are no less… taxing upon a city’s resources.”

 

He clicked his hoof on the direhorn’s fringe twice to get the beast to speed up through the drag. There were thieves aplenty in Orgrimmar even without a sudden wave of people, and one was wise not to given them the time to pilfer one’s belongings. At least that was the reason he’d give Gazk. In truth he was more worried about having to witness one of the impromptu slave auctions of captured Alliance soldiers and citizens if he stayed too long. One of the more unfortunate byproducts of Thrall having left the position of Warchief was the de-facto reinstitution of slavery. Sylvanas’ rule in particular had all but embraced the practice. He didn’t think he could restrain himself from doing or saying something unbecoming of his position if he were to witness something that contrary to Thrall’s vision for the Horde.

 

The Direhorn glad to move forward at a pace it deemed appropriate, let out a joyful cry, and trampled its way forward, scattering a crowd of boars that someone had been herding through the street. The swine scattered, leaving a bemused peon to chase after them with a crooked stick and an exhausted looking Worg. Abraxian navigated the beast around the winding streets of the city, heading to the highest spires of Orgrimmar. It was on one of these spires that he knew the good ship Fizzlegold’s Rebuke would be lazily floating, waiting for its last passengers.

 

The bloated shape of the airship was barely distinguishable from the thirty or so others waving about on their long anchor ropes, but the bright blue paint along it’s belly in the shape of an dagger stabbing through and equally brilliant white skull - specifically that of a Liche Lord - identified it from the rest. The Captain, Pickrick Fizzlegold, fancied himself a key player in the defeat of Arthas. Depending on which member of the crew one asked, it was even close to being true. Abraxian had chartered the oversized Zeppelin to move his personal effects, retainers, and personal bestiary from the Broken Shores back to Kalimdor when the current conflict had arisen. He was just glad that it was his military, rather than personal, line of credit which was covering the cost of retaining the Captain’s services. Military grade airships weren’t cheap.

 

The Direhorn stood atop the elevator only at Abraxian’s insistence. It didn’t like the sensation of going upward without having initiated the motion. As a war-beast, however, it did not panic like Kodo calf being lifted to Thunder Bluff. Abraxian opened his jaw, yawning to relieve the pressure as they ascended to the precarious heights that the Goblins preferred to load and unload cargo. He dismounted the Howda, helping Gazk to do the same as they exited the lift. He handed the reins over to a goblin attendant - just accepting on faith that the tiny green individual was going to be able to coax the massive beast to where it needed to be. Goblins were a slight people, but never to be underestimated.

 

He crossed to rickety gangplank, taking care not to look down as he crossed it, stepping onto the sturdy oak deck of the Airship. Gobins scurried across its surface, meddling with all manner of strange devices and odd contraptions beyond Abraxian’s skill as a blacksmith to replicate. The Captain and namesake of the airship, Rixnap Fizzlegold, was standing at the gangplank with his arms crossed and his face scrunched up in a manufactured scowl. “You’re wasting my time here General. I could be somewhere else, making some real money.”

 

It was a lie, of course. There wasn’t anywhere better to make profit than directly from the purse-strings of its military but Fizzlegold was greedly little snot-rag of a man. He’d insist on seven additional “service” charges before the day was done, and would fight till judgement day that they were all above board. It was widely regarded wisdom that Goblins costed five times what they advertised to complete any service to your standards rather than their own. They were great allies if you had the gold to rent their loyalty.

 

Abraxian had a bargaining tool that most people the good Captain dealt with did not have access to - however. Abraxian, by himself, had killed more people than most armies had managed to slay. Consequently, people tended to assume that he enjoyed killing. He leaned in and give the Captain his most murderous glare, kneeling down on one knee to be eye to eye with the Goblin. Even kneeling he still towered over the Goblin. He bent in so that the tips of his horns just grazed the epaulets of the Captain’s uniform.

 

The Captain swallowed audibly. “Uh - that is - I mean we were all worried about you General. Dangerous times and all that.”

 

Abraxian grinned flashing a mouth full of teeth larger than the Goblin’s torso. “Good.”

 

The Captain swallowed. “Uh - Boss, so… where we headin’?”

 

“Zandalar.” Abraxian replied, the words turning to ash in his mouth. “We’re heading to War.”


	2. Chapter 2

The wind whipped violently across the airship’s bow, bitingly cold and painful even through Abraxian’s thick fur. He’d hopes that diverting south to avoid passing the Broken Isles would have ameliorated the biting cold, but apparently the height at which a Goblin made Zeppelin operated could manage to turn even a sun kissed summer breeze into bitter winter. He would very much have liked to be below decks in the pressurized and climate controlled interior, but it wouldn’t have been fitting for an Officer of the Horde to be cowering below decks while young men struggled to work on his behalf.

 

True, the crew of the Fizzlegold’s Rebuke weren’t soldiers of the horde except in the most nominal possible notion of the term. They were hired privateers who would happily have worked for the Alliance if it the Horde’s rivals had been willing to work with the Goblin Cartels. They were not, in point of fact, even exclusively Goblin crewmen. Goblins happily hired whatever labor was cheapest and most reliable, resulting in mixed race crews that would have raised allegations of outright treason if their Airships weren’t utterly indispensable for the Horde’s logistics. The odd smattering of Human or Ogre crewmen was to be forgiven in exchange for uncontested control of the skies.

 

It took a madman to construct the sort of monstrosity Abraxian stood upon the deck of - the sort of mind who would wrap achemic gases in animal skins and use them to drag wood an iron into the skies. But that was the sort of devious cleverness that the goblins always seemed to have at the tip of their fingers.

 

The Captain barked out orders to his crew as they struggled to force the marvel of goblin engineering even higher into the skies. He did so by virtue of a long strand of metal tipped with a glowing orange crystal that ran around his ear and under his jaw. Either by virtue of magic or some engineering beyond Abraxian’s understanding the weedly little green man somehow managed to project his voice from every direction at once, barking out harsh orders in his native tongue.

 

They all spoke Orcish, of course, but it was common practice for privateers to talk in Goblin rather than the common tongue of the Horde. It reduced the chance that Alliance spies might be able to overhear commands in real-time and counter them. It wasn’t a perfect system, to be sure, but there were far more Alliance soldiers who Orcish or Zandali, the language of the Trolls. Taurahe would likely have cut them out of the loop entirely, but would have had the added effect of cutting out most allies as well. Tauren, as a rule, did not write down their histories. The very idea of writing had seemed preposterous when it had first been proposed to him, but he’d since learned out of pure necessity.

 

While Tauren, as a consequence of lacking a concrete written language, tended to pick up spoken languages quite quickly, Abraxian still found the Goblin tongue quite impenetrable. He was more or less useless to the process, except to stand on the bridge and pretend that the cold wasn’t bothering him, but he frankly couldn’t think of anything better to do with his time. With few exceptions, the transit between continents was a surprisingly unremarkable process. The creation of the Horde had allowed for great leaps in the understanding of cartography, meteorology, astrology, and navigation through the collective pooling of knowledge - even before one accounted for the sudden merging of previously disconnected schools of magic. With relatively minimal preparation one could plan a route that could reasonably avoid the hazards that might have made travel impossible even a decade prior.

 

He reached up to his face, adjusting the breathing mask with his fingers. He felt inescapably clumsy doing so, there were so many fiddly fasteners and tiny leather things that he would never have been able to attach it without assistance. The Goblins had made it to fit his face, but they’d scoffed at the idea of making it to fit his fingers. Apparently the “pressure seal” required a more fine touch than he was able to manage. Abraxian hated the mask. He hated that it was the only thing keeping him from suffocating. But it was a necessary evil.

 

There would be Gnomish airships hunting their Goblin counterparts - but at high altitudes few offensive measures could be reliably employed against one's enemy. Canons could not be ignited without a spark. Without air, even spellfire would fizzle and die. Ice magic would be similarly impotent, the frozen projectiles were as bound by the laws of gravity as any other weapon. There were arcane or infernal magics that one might employ in such a situation, but the rank and file battlemages of the Alliance were generally of the Fire or Ice variety. Airborne cavalry would be similarly limited, Hippogryphs and Gryphons had a maximum altitude at which they could reliably operate without breathing apparatus or significant spell-work.

 

It didn’t negate all potential threat to the Fizzlegold’s Rebuke, but Abraxian and his retinue were hardly worth the effort - especially with so much of the Horde Navy actively attacking Alliance holdings. A single airship operating too high to employ its own canons was hardly worth the effort.

 

Well… at least Abraxian hoped it wasn’t worth the effort. The Warchief’s choice to burn the ancestral homeland of the Night Elves to Ash had changed the calculus for “acceptable risk” in so many ways that he wasn’t sure if he could rely upon any of his previous judgements for what the Alliance was willing to do.

 

He huffed out a long breath, pushing out a long white plume of gasses into the air as his mask expelled the excess air. He closed his eyes, enjoying a brief respite in the biting winds, before opening them abruptly as he realized that the lull in biting cold had already lasted far too long. His heart caught in his throat as he recognized the cruel cackling behind him, turning to face the source of bright green light that had just appeared behind him. The Fizzlegold’s Rebuke was frozen in an instant, a green haze paralyzing the entire world around him save a single figure.

 

Daglop Ravallash Driscol Blat didn’t look remarkably different from any other Imp - but it could only have been him who’d done this. Daglop was a miniscule figure, covered in irregular tufts of fur and horny protrusions from his apeish little body. He wore more earrings in the long dagger-like protrusions that stuck out the back of his head nearly as far as his horns than when Abraxian had last seen him. It now even wore robe to cover up its misshapen body and horrible knobby feet, embroidered with a Tauren’s face that couldn’t help but look ominously familiar to Abraxian.

 

“Why are you wearing me Imp?” Abraxian snarled, furious at the demon - all too aware of the rolled contract within his pocket. Daglop had been an ally of convenience while he’d been assaulting the forces of the Legion. An ally, it transpired, that came with a lifetime worth of fine print.

 

“Are you kidding me?” The Imp cackled, its voice shrill and echoing. “After all the trouble you’ve managed to cause me? You’ll cope.”

 

“Trouble I’ve caused you?” Abraxain scoffed, towering over the demon. “Imp, you’ve had the audacity to summon me to kill your rivals.”

 

“A contract’s a contract, bub.” Daglop waved away the Tauren’s blade. “And between the two of us, I promise you that you aren’t the one who’s got the biggest axe to grind.”

 

“Imp I have killed thousands upon thousands of your kind.” Abraxian brandished his sword.

 

“Good thing we put in a non-aggression pact between us in the terms then, eh?” The miniscule man rolled his eyes at the Tauren’s overt display of violence. It wasn’t the first time Abraxian had threatened violence upon the imp, and likely wouldn’t be the last. “Abby - buddy - you know how this works. You hem, and haw and complain that we have a deal, right up till I give you a target that you already know you’re going to feel utterly obligated to fight even though a demon is giving it to you, and we both get what we want out if it. I get more power and you… you get it kill some big nasty thing that probably has treasure or something.”

 

The demon pursed its lips, as though considering the matter. “I mean, that is what you mortal things like, right? Killing stuff and taking their shiniest toys? It’s sort of hard for me to bother caring about what ephemerals actually like to do - eh - doesn’t matter. You’ll do it. You owe me.”

 

“The hell I do. I read the contract.” Abraxian pulled the page from his pocket, brandishing the vellum parchment as violently as he’d brandished the sword. “I’m only obligated to provide you with services commensurate to any rewards offered that I elect to do. I have the right to choose to deny your request.”

 

“Eh - not quite. Ya see, you’re also obligated to redress any damages done to me and my affairs. And - hoo boy - have you screwed the pooch on this one Abby.” The Imp grabbed it’s long furry eyebrows, tugging on the foetid tufts in frustration. “I mean - wow - I knew you were crazy, but I didn’t think you were crazy enough to actually fight Kil'jaeden - let alone Sargeras. The whole damned Legion is so busy fighting each other to figure out who is in charge that the other side is moving without anyone to stop them.”

 

“Well, we do tend to do that when we’re not overwhelmed by demonic hordes.” Abraxian replied dryly.

 

“Kid - this was never about you. Alliance, Horde - you’re just in the way.” Daglop brushed the front of his robes. “And you have successfully prevented me from invading another world to fight the real war.”

 

“If you’re hoping for me to initiate another Legion invasion you can just wait until the end of creation.” Abraxian felt a slight gust of cold. Whatever spell the imp was using was struggling to keep its hold over the forces of time. Daglop had a high opinion of itself, but it had little power beyond those it gained through deals. It’s contract to bind the forces of time was clearly waning. “I will never help the Legion.”

 

“I don’t want you to help - just balance the scales. Easy like.” The demon held out a scroll.

 

Abraxian looked at the parchment in incredulity. “You can’t be serious. I’m not touching another contract.”

 

“It's not a contract. Honest!” The demon unrolled the scroll to show a map, marked with elaborate navigational notations.

 

Abraxian rolled his eyes.

 

“Come on Abby - you know the terms. I’m not allowed to lie to you.” Daglop waved his hand over the map. “This is just a map to a place. I want you to go there, and to thwart what the other side has planned. You stopped us from invading Azeroth, now you need to stop them from invading somewhere else. It's easy. Wham- bam- done! It's even on the way! After nyxing a Titan, this should be easy street.”

 

“And yet I’m no more inclined to do it.” Abraxian grabbed the map, if only to stop the imp from brandishing it.

 

“Fine - fine, just let the Black Empire conquer a whole world so they can give birth to a whole new legion of Old Gods.” The Imp’s fangs glinted wolfishly as it savored speaking worlds it knew would force Abraxian to act.

 

Abraxian hissed through clenched teeth. Abraxian despised the Old Gods with a passion matched only by his hatred of the Burning Legion, and the Imp knew it. “What?”

 

“Oh - it’s hardly going to be a thing to a big bad General like you.” The Imp joked idly, taking great glee in the moment. “I mean, you’ve killed two of them so far. What’s a third? A fourth? I’m sure the Faceless Ones are just killing time to amuse themselves.”

 

“What are the N’raqi doing?” Abraxian’s eye twitched at the very mention of the servants of the Old Gods. The N’raqui were misshapen monsters, the irregular masses of flesh and muscle that hobbled their way across the Black Empire at the head of their insectoid armies. They were large, strong, magically powerful, and - worst of all - clever. If they were doing something, there was a purpose to it.

 

“Just because the Order of Tiristfal never picked a new guy to get the power to open portals to new worlds after Medivh opened the portal for the Orcish Horde doesn’t mean than nobody knows how to make a portal to another world.” The Imp shrugged. “Humans have a bad habit of assuming that because they can’t remember how to do something that nobody remembers. I kinda figured you were smarter than that. The Old Gods are… well… Old. They tend to remember stuff the rest of you fleshbags forget. Opening a portal to another world? Difficult but doable, provided they have enough blood sacrifices. And G’huun help them, they’ve got no shortage.”

 

“The Old Gods are bound. Trapped.” Abraxian hissed. Hoping more than believing.

 

“The Old Gods of Azeroth? Eh - even that is less guaranteed lately.” The Imp shrugged. “But there are plenty of Void seeds that never had a chance to be. They get those to another world? Or - Nether help you - they manage to open up to a world that already has been seeded? And its wham bam - thank you ma’am, and a whole new mess of Old God to deal with.”

 

“Oh… Crap.” The Black Empire was one of the ancient powers that Abraxian wished would have had the courtesy to die off centuries ago. Ruled by primordial Gods, the Empire had ruled over ancient Kalimdor with brutality and horrific magics until they’d been defeated by the Titan Keeper armies and locked within elaborate prisons. He had been part of the Armies who’d first delved into the magically preserved Kingdom of Ahn’Quiraj to slay the final remnants of C’Thun’s armies. He still had nightmares about skittering chitin and insects the size of dragons. It had taken nearly a year for the collective Horde armies to reach C’Thun’s inner sanctum and attack the foul Old God. An army that had once been hundreds of thousands, whittled down to 40 in a pyrrhic victory over the Cuthonic power. Abraxian had been within the God’s belly when it had died, hacking and slashing at fanged tentacles as he prayed to than Ancestors that he would escape C’Thun’s endless hunger. He’d actually died fighting the fleshy mass of Fangs and psychic energies that was Yogg’Saron, his soul forced back into his body by a priest unwilling to let his spirit empower the ancient evil.

 

No sane man would allow - could allow the Black Empire to flourish. The damnable Imp knew that his duty to the Horde would not allow him to ignore a threat from the Black Empire remnants. “I hate you.”

 

“And I own you,” The imp vanished in a puff of smoke as the green glow disappeared from the world around them, cold air hitting Abraxian’s face with an icy whip of gusting frost. “Do remember your place, minion.”

 

Abraxian stomped the deck hard enough to crack the deck with his hooves, terrifying the Captain as the Tauren seemingly teleported across the deck with a blade in hand. Abraxian sheathed his blade - ignoring the confused looks from crewmen as he handed the Imp’s map to the Captain.

 

“General?” The Captain took the offered map in confusion. “This… this isn’t the heading you asked me for.”

 

“It will be the heading we go to.” Abraxian replied, opening the hatch to the lower decks. “And make it double-time.”

 

“Yeah - sure.” The Goblin rolled his eyes in disgust, clearly used to dealing with irrational clients. “But I’m charging you extra for the detour.”

 

“The Horde will pay it.” Abraxian replied as he turned for the pressurized hatch to the lower decks.

 

“And for my deck!” The Captain shouted over the hiss of pressure seals. “You freaking bovine battering ram.”

 

Abraxian closed the pressurized door, ripped the breathing mask from his face, and openly wept into Daglop’s contract.


	3. Chapter 3

Gazk had to duck to avoid a long, serrated claw as he passed the paddock in which one of the the Lieutenant Generals more esoteric pets was just barely confined behind heavy bars forged from Leystone. The purple white mineral shimmered with infused mana as the bars sparked against the creature’s flesh, fel-infused blood burning as the creature howled and backed from the barrier. The young Orc had to take a minute to compose himself against the bulkhead before continuing, cursing his foolishness for allowing himself to be distracted by the coming battle.

 

The General was as close to a father as Gazk had ever had. Like most Orcs not in the horde, he’d been sold and re-sold as labor in the Alliance for longer than he cared to remember. Long enough, certainly for him to have difficulty remember any individual owner before he’d been sold to serve as squire in the Argent Tournament. When the General - then just a Stone Guard in the Horde, - won the Melee and was given Gazk to tend to him, Gazk had just expected more labor. A peon could expect little more.

 

The General had instead taken him under his wing, teaching Gazk how to read, write, think, fight, and showing him more of the world than most could even dream to see. It was like living with a hero of legends. Unfortunately - legends also included many nightmares in them. The nameless, slavering monstrosity taken from the pits of Argus was a blade-faced combination of horrors capable of tearing men to shreds with a sweep of its talons. The books of the Kirin Tor in the Generals library didn’t even have a name to attribute to the beast because prior to the assault on Argus, nobody had seen this breed of monster before.

 

In the absence of another name, the General had named it “Spot,” because he found the mottled pattern of scales endearing.

 

Lieutenant General Abraxian Skycaller was a warrior without peer but he was horrid at naming things, just the absolute worst.

 

The General had a fondness for creatures that was perhaps ill-advised, paired with an outright baffling capacity to convince those same creatures to allow him to ride them. Gazk had never personally felt the impulse to ride to battle atop any beast of burden composed entirely of ensorcelled molten rock but that was part of what made the General the General. Gazk nearly jumped back into talon range of the creature when he felt a small hand resting on his arm.

 

He turned nervously to face one of the beings the General had placed in charge of the bestiary, choosing his words with care to avoid offending it. It chose the form of a human child, but Gazk knew better - he’d been there when the creature had been pledged to the General. “Emmigosa - how good to see you.”

 

“You are late.” The creature chided Gazk in mild amusement as she walked up to the bars. The creature’s imitation of a human child was imperfect. Her eyes and hair were ice blue, as was the pale shade of flesh on her hand as she reached through the bars to toss hunks of flesh into the creature’s cage. The demon burrowed into the stack of hay at the back, moving as far from the child’s hands as it could manage. “The others have started saddling your Wyvern without you.”

 

“I’ll take my leave then.” Gazk swallowed nervously, fighting the urge to flee. One didn’t give a predator obvious signs of weakness. “Lady Emmigosa.”

 

It was not a child. Emmigosa was a being of arcane power bound to serve the general by her Patriarch. It was young, but even as a child it could break Gazk at a whim. He was afraid to even think the name of her species, for fear that she might know he was considering him.

 

“I wouldn’t go that way, if I were you.” The child laughed, it was an earnest laugh but it sent shivers down Gazk’s spine. “My cousin is down that corridor. The Dragonslayer has certain beasts for whom she is best suited to control.”

 

“Son-of-a-Murlock.” There was only one creature who Emmigosa referred to as “cousin” rather than by the creature’s name. Only the General dared to get within arm’s reach of that one without its expressed permission. Spirits alone knew why he allowed it free reign on the ship.

 

Emmigosa frightened him. That “woman” was the thing of nightmares. And of course, she was in this corridor. Gazk groaned, briefly forgetting the discomfort he felt in Emmigosa’s presence. “That’s the only path.”

 

“Not the only one.” Disagreed Emmigosa, snapping her fingers and summoning a translucent disc of swirling magic. “If you please? The Dragonslayer would be cross if you were to be damaged.”

 

Gazk weighed the sincerity of the creature’s offer, one did not treat Emmigosa or any of those like her in the General’s employ with unflinching trust. The magic and pacts allowing Abraxian to control powerful beings were not a guarantee of safety, even for Abraxian himself. Emmigosa wasn’t a particularly duplicitous creature, however. Had it desired Gazk’s death, it would simply have scourged him with arcane energies or just opened the cage and tossed him into it.

 

Even if she weren’t, he was willing to risk it rather than being in the presence of Emmigosa’s cousin. He walked into the disc of arcane power and binked the sars out of his eyes as he was suddenly translocated across time and space to reach the belly of the Fizzlegold’s Rebuke - left somewhat dizzy by the sheer power of that portal.

 

He spoke hasty words of thanks and rushed into the portal.

 

He staggered a few feet as the stars left his eyes, his hand landing on a soft, slick patch of something as he exhaled a few times. There was a trilling ribbit of sound as he opened his eyes again and he found himself facing a creature that wasn’t much more than a giant mouth with eyes and teeth. The Gorlock, Wago son of Moodle, had come to the General’s service much as Gazk had. The frog-like creature wasn’t much prone to words - or to reactions. It licked one of it’s massive eyeballs and let out a croaking noise of curiosity - not speaking, though Gazk knew it was capable of speech.

 

“I… took a shortcut.” Gazk replied, taking his hand from the creature’s snout.

 

Wago made another croaking grawlp, not actually verbalizing its thoughts as it kept on with his day as though an Orc hadn’t just walked through a portal and smacked him in the face. Gazk had grown up with the Oracle since he had been a hatchling, but the Orc was no closer to understanding the Gorloc’s moods. It didn’t share it’s feeling and didn’t feel especially obligated to say anything other than what was strictly necessary to accomplish its goals. 

 

Wago ignored him, kneeling down and opening a trap-door to a large tank of water. He hopped into it, closing the trapdoor after himself with a loud “spoosh” of displaced water. Gazk kicked the edge of the trapdoor petulantly. “Be like that then!”

 

He was abruptly reminded why one didn’t kick the trapdoor to the aquatic section of the Fizzlegold’s rebuke as a tentacle snapped out from under the trapdoor and knocked his feet out from under him - the gurgling sounds of fishy laughter echoing up from the briny depths as he swore vigrously, struggling to right himself after having been upended in full plate armor.

 

“You never have learned how to control your temper.” Purred the educated tones of a man Gazk knew to have been raised in the capital of the Alliance, back when it had been considered acceptable for the nobility to emply Orcish slaves. Koak Hoburn, the Vallet of the General, lifted Gazk from the ground. Koak was a massive Orc with rippling thews and a lantern jaw that had Gazk half convinced that the Orc was part Ogre.

 

One would assume that an Orc of his stature and ferocious appearance was a great warrior. They would be wrong. Koak Hobrun took great pride in pacifism, spending no energy hating anything other than the necessity of violence. That was not to say there was no war in the Orc’s heart - no man born a slave was without darkness in him - but one would have to dig deep to find it. “If you must fight, at least have the dignity to so on your feet, boy.”

 

Koak lifted Gazk, armor and all, to his feet with one hand. He didn’t even seem to be breathing hard for the effort, let alone having mussed the rich fabric of the dark suit he wore. Even in the stables of a Horde war machine, Koak was dressed for the court of a high noble. He didn’t use magic, as far as Gazk knew, but his suits never seemed appropriately dirty enough for him to not be using copious magic. His current outfit seemed to be a sewn from sharkskin and the flesh of the flying ray-like creatures of Argus, though you’d be hard pressed to notice the exotic fabrics from the subtle tailoring. Koak’s own work, no doubt.

 

“Thanks Koak.” Gazk blushed a dark shade of green at how Koak always made him feel like a gruntling all over again.

 

“Mr. Hoburn, to you child.” Replied the Vallet’s elegant purr as he shoved a leather satchel into Gazk’s hands. “Now off with you, there’s a damn fool war that the Ambassador is about to start. You would pout for weeks if he started it without you.”

 

Gazk had just about enough time to register that the satchel was full of sandwiches before Koak, suit and all, hopped down through the trapdoor without so much as a splash in spite of his massive bulk. Gazk tied the satchel to his waist, trudging over to the bulkhead and trying to make heads or tails of the map. Anything a thousand feet long, five hundred feet wide, and two hundred feet deep took some effort to navigate - and that was before one considered the Goblin issue.

 

Goblins considered little things like “symmetry” and “blueprints” to be polite suggestions, rather than strict rules, but the Fizzlegold’s Rebuke was generally reliable when one consulted a local map. On an airship ship as truly massive as the Fizzlegold’s rebuke those directions broke down as one went from port to starboard and fore to aft where the goblin cartographers grew bored and just started making stuff up.

 

Gazk made his best guess and just kept going down ladder-wells and through bulkheads past the bizzare collection of soldiers and creatures in the General’s army. He didn’t even know the proper names for some of the armored things that were relaxing in their berthings, talking, gambling, eating, brawling, and drinking to excess. He scurried through busy dining halls, past apothecaries selling their wares out of small stalls, and past a room full of charnel that a gaggle of the forsaken were mix and matching together a golem into one of the massive flesh obscenities they favored as heavy shock troops.

 

When he caught the scent of Mag’har Direwolves and cooking stew, he knew he’d gone the right way. The Mag’har refused to sleep apart from their steeds, partially out of loyalty and partially out of mistrust of their Gron, Ogron, and Ogre kinsmen’s fondness for the flesh of wolves. The brown-skinned giants idly watched him as he passed them, their eyes keeping track of him as they scrupulously didn’t look up from their meals as he walked by them.

 

Gazk fought the urge to smile. The Mag’har fancied themselves the “true orcs” and “true warriors,” but it would be he who charged into battle alongside the general - not them. A less petty part of his mind reminded him that the reason they weren’t charging into battle had little to do with their prowess in battle and everything to do with them being unable to bring enough Wyvrens with them when they’d fled Draenor for every group of them fighting with the Horde to be an areal unit. He shoved that less petty part of himself back into the corner it had come out of, indulging in the moment of pride as he walked across the deck of the Fizzlegold’s Rebuke’s roost.

 

The roost of the Fizzlegold’s rebuke was a staggered series of interlocking platforms upon which the winged mounts of the General’s cadre could be housed, stabled, tended to, and prepared for battle. It was a massive beehive of winged beasts of war, leonine Wyverns, serpentine Dragonhawks, vicious bats, smoke-belching goblin constructs, summoned monsters, and things still yet more exotic. At its center was a flat surface, large enough for battle formations to muster - just one of five such formations stacked atop one another with wide open spaces in them to allow one to fly up or down. Armored doors were staggered along these platforms, heavy bulkheads between the interior of the Fizzlegold’s rebuke and the outside world.

 

There was a long whistle from the belly of the airship, the goblin made intercoms projecting the shrill voice of the Goblin Captain loud enough that even the laziest of the crew couldn’t pretend not to have heard it. There was a screeching scrape of leystone scraping across demonsteel reinforced wood and the snaring cries of Wyverns as his scouts disgorged from the airship.

 

The leathery winged leonine forms spread out through the low clouds, groups of Scouts flying in inverted “v” shapes on either side of the airship. He watched them disappear into the distance, saying a prayer to the ancestors that he was making the right choice.

 

There were Generals who led their men into battle without sending scouts out to determine the capacity and disposition of their enemies, historically those on the losing side of a conflict. Gazk knew all to well that Abraxian had long ago dismissed the youthful delusion that there was some great glory to winning a battle fairly or to giving your opponent the chance to be your equal. Mages would, in theory, stay in contact with scouts for the entire duration of their flight and transcribe what they saw.

 

Fools trusted in magic alone. Spells were good under perfect conditions but magic wasn’t perfect. The mass produced charms of communications distributed by the Horde rarely worked consistently enough for it to be reliable beyond a few miles. An archmage could make one well enough to work between planets. Archmages generally didn’t sell communication charms in bulk. Apprentice wizards trying to fund their studies did so happily.

 

Sure, there were magic users in the Generals army - ones even debatably of Archmage quality. That might work - assuming that every battlemage of the Horde was capable of more than wanton destruction with any reliability. Finesse was not a battle bombadier's forte.

 

So, to actually get useful information, one needed the scout to return. But the reality was that few scouts sent into real danger managed to come back. Any halfway competent enemy would have flyers in place to pick off scouting parties.

 

As a consequence scouts were trained to flee at the first sign of danger - but that only mitigated the attrition in scouting parties. Thus the inverted “v” shape and why the rearmost flyer was generally a Goblin. It increased the chances that at least one of the scouts would be able to see his allies die, and get back to the airship to let them know of the danger. Bluntly put, Abraxian trusted the Goblin scouts to actually run at the sign of danger. Goblins, as a whole, seemed to have an evolved sense of self preservation. That paired with the fact that they were substantially lighter for their Wyvern mounts to carry, made them ideal runners to carry information back to a war-host of the Horde.

 

He didn’t envy the role of scouts. They were proud and brave, but not particularly long-lived.

 

“GAAAZK,” Snarled a creature that could only charitably be described as civilized even by orcish standards as it loped towards him, running towards him with it’s knuckles hanging - nearly dragging to the ground. It wore a mottled mis-mosh of boiled leather and stolen scraps of platemale wrapped in animal skins that hadn’t quite finished curing, or bleeding, before it used them to bind together it’s patchwork armor. “GAZK NO MOVE FAST! MOVE FAST!”

 

“Hi Meatball.” Gazk pulled a sandwich from the satchel and tossed it to the Hyena-like brawler. The creature stopped mid stride, his focus entirely on the food as it soared through the air. The food went slightly over the being’s head, but not far enough for him not to twist his neck and devour the food with a snicker-snack of five-inch long fangs.

 

Meatball briefly forgot why he’d run over, sniffing the air wide eyed as though another sandwich might come his way from any direction. As the mad glint of hunger left his eyes he looked back at Gazk, apparently having forgotten that the Orc was even there. He greeted Gazk with his usual exaggeratedly violent enthusiasm. “GAZK! WHEN YOU GET PLACE? MEATBALL MISS GAZK! WE FIGHT SOON! WE KILL MANY THINGS!”

 

The Orc warriors around the brawler were taking exaggerated care not to draw the attention of the Gnoll Brawler. Meatball was violent and prone to unpredictable action, even by Gnoll standards. It was loyal without question but apparently “blind loyalty” didn’t exactly mean “safe to be around.”

 

“COME FRIEND GAZK! COME TO MEET MURDER FRIENDS!” The Hyena-like creature howled with near sexual anticipation of battle. “WE KILL SO MANY THINGS!”

 

Gazk followed the loping madmen through the sea of warriors over to the General’s honor guard. His own mount, a Wyvern in dark purple armor, purred eagerly as he approached it. He scratched behind the creature’s muzzle and cooed softly into the creature’s ear, prompting the beast to twitch the long scorpion-like stinger at the end of its tail in pleasure. He was careful to keep his eye on the venom tipped end as it purred, there was no safe part of a wyvern and even tame beasts made mistakes.

 

The other members of the General’s honor guard didn’t look up from their own pre-battle rituals except to briefly acknowledge his presence. There was little time for socialization. Meatball forgot Gazk almost immediately after he found a haunch of bloody meat that someone had placed atop the ensorcelled metal disk he flew into battle. If it wasn’t enticed with food to keep the disk in line of sight, the brawler couldn’t be reliably trusted to remember that it had a something that would help it fly.

As usual it had been placed next to the Iron Dwarf, Dvalen Ironrune. As Dvalen was made of stone and metal, he could reliably be next to Meatball without the creature getting protective of its meal. The primordial dragon-like creature Dvalen rode atop had been forged by the same hands, and while both creatures were living, thinking beings, they weren’t alive in the sense one normally associated with such things. Though in fairness, the same could be said of the fire mage Vivianne.

 

The stench of rot from the Forsaken mage was nearly and putrid as the horrible odor from the massive bat she was feeding hunks of flesh. Her chipper face and cheery song were in stark contrast to the human hand she was spoon-feeding to her pet. Her lidless eyes glowed orange where she’d replaced them with ensorcelled gems at some point, the putrified remnants of her eyeballs having shattered from incautious use of frost magic. She meant well… but having died several times seemed to have left her with a poor concept of self preservation and more than a bit mad.

 

Aeda Brightdawn was the final member of the General’s retinue, a Warlock who’d apparently never bothered to fight at a distance. Most Warlocks were content to allow their summoned demons to fight on their behalf, only engaging in close quarters combat as an absolute last resort. Aeda was of the opinion that the best defense was an overwhelming offense, bashing in the head of any foe foolish enough to give her the opportunity to drive a halberd through their skull just because they expected her to stand at a distance flinging bolts of molten shadow. Her summoned steed glared hatefully at her, bound to her her will by force and by blood pact rather than out of true loyalty.

 

Pacts with demons never ended well.

 

There was a high-pitched snarl and a leathery-winged beast flew over into the center of the retinue with a heavily-scarred and even more heavily armored Tauren atop it’s back. Cald in the heavy plate of a Vallajar warrior, the General rode astride an equally armored, dragon-like war-wyrm with a murderous glee on its face that made Meatball look positively sedate. It was a primitive creature with near-orcish intellect and a preternatural capacity for violence. It was a primordial mount earned by completing the multitude of trials in service of the Titan Keeper Odyn, one of the god-like creatures tasked with the orderly operation of Azeroth. Few could claim to have been in Odyn’s presence, let alone to be named Battlelord of the Stormforged.

 

The magnitude of the accomplishment felt somewhat diminished by the General’s decision to dub the war beast “Mister Bitey.”

 

The retinue mounted without exchanging words. They’d served the General for long enough that they knew his mind. The general had a parchment in his hands, an ensorcelled piece of vellum Gazk knew had been in the General’s possession since first he’d left mulgore. It allowed the general to keep track of anywhere he’d been, as well as allowing scouts to place points of interest upon it so that he could react to major events in his area of responsibility. He would then delegate them to subordinates or deal with them as was necessary.

 

“They’re here.” The General growled in anger as he observed the map. “Damn - the were ready for us.”

 

The Tauren rolled up the map and put it into his pack, his face as grim as Gazk had ever seen it. It was the look the General wore when he’d sent people to their deaths and knew he would send hundreds more. Gazk knew that he wouldn’t see the scouts again.

 

The general pulled a rounded stone from one of the four saddlebags on his mount, placing the green disk against his lips. The General’s words reverberated from the ship’s intercom, summoned by either alchemical sorcery or goblin science. “Warriors of the horde, heed my words!”

 

The crowd fell to silence as he spoke, hundreds of eyes upon the General. He towered over them with his Wyrm, making eye contact with Orcs, Trolls, Forsaken, Tauren, Goblins, Pandaren, Elves, and so many others. “We are not going to make it to Zandalar. War has already found us but we are without fear!”

 

There was a cheer at those words, warriors feeling the call of battle in their hearts. The General continued. “We are to face the armies of the Old Gods. Give them no quarter, you will get none in return. But we are without fear!

 

The crowd grew more excited by the second, knowing what was soon to come. “We are the Horde. We defeated the Legion. We defeated Arthas. We defeated Deathwing. We defeated C’Thun. We defeated Y’Shaarj. We defeated Gul’dan. We even defeated Sargeras! And these foes think to conquer us? The fools.”

 

The armies of the general laughed appreciatively. Gazk laughed along, but it was forced. The General didn’t give rousing speeches for battles he expected to win. The longer the speech, the more he believed his troops needed to believe that they could beat the unbeatable. Hope was a dangerous weapon and the General never left his men unarmed.

 

“For victory! For Honor!” The General bellowed. “For the Horde!”

 

“For the Horde!” Bellowed the war host in reply, repeating the three words in near religious fervor.” For the Horde! For the Horde….”

 

They continued the chant as they poured out from the sides of the ship, charging after the general as he led the battle. The straps tying Gazk to his saddle bucked and tugged painfully as his Wyvren fleww out the side of the airship, diving after the General’s massive beast of burden. The Hordes of the Skycaller billowed out from the Fizzlegold’s rebuke like swallows from a nest, darting and ducking through the thinning clouds. They followed the lead of their General as he flew across the skies above a nightmare.

 

Titanic, tentacled monstrosities were swimming along the surface - misshapen creatures of the sea polluted by the inky black energy of the void. They carried great mountains of rotting flesh upon their backs, carrion charnel to sustain the insect-armies of Ahn’Quiraj. He could hear the thunderous buzzing even over the engines of the airship. Serpentine masses roiled along the surface of the water, glinting hints of metal and shells hinting to the importance of individual Naga as they breached the wake of the massive void-kraken.

It wasn’t an army, it was an apocalypse of flesh. They could have ten times the army they brought and they’d still have been outnumbered. Gazk trusted in his General.

 

Lieutenant General Abraxian Skycaller was the greatest warrior in the history of the Horde. Gazk had faith that the Battlelord knew what he was doing.


End file.
